Thirteen years after the event, I found myself delving into the extraordinary world of George Monbiot’s Feral, the book that unwittingly launched a thousand ‘rewilding the self’ retreats. In Feral, the clear-eyed journalist, environmentalist and political activist mourns the great taming of the human race, the suburbanisation of our souls and loss of our inner wild thing. I’ve been thinking about this a lot myself in the summer heat, desperately searching for a water source and finding myself obliged to download QR codes, sign waivers and all sorts just to swim in a lake. It does make me want to cast off the shackles. This summer, my cat has had enough of it too and has rewilded himself, moving out to a derelict rubbish-filled garden frequented by foxes and pigeons, going on the kill and refusing to come back to his furry bed and slippers at all (hopefully it’s only temporary? I’m tracking his antics on neighbourhood WhatsApps). Monbiot charts his youthful episode amid the threatened Yanomami tribe of the Brazilian Amazon, and describes fearsome encounters with waves in the wilder stretches of the Welsh coast. He argues that industrial farming has destroyed British ecosystems and that we need to go the way of rewilding, bringing back the wolves and boar, the lynx et al, and going full throttle for the British safari. In 2013, Monbiot (and other pioneer rewilders like Paul Lister of Alladale, with his plan to bring back wolves to the Highlands) seemed radical, even kooky, but rewilding as a concept is now edging into the mainstream. The argument is well known – but no one documents it as viscerally and compellingly as Monbiot. – LB
